Malcolm Kendall-Smith supports Time to Go demonstration

by Esme Choonara

Published Sat 23 Sep 2006

Issue No. 2019

Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith told a public meeting on Thursday that the crimes of the British and American governments may cause a 'return to barbarism in the modern age' unless they change their foreign policy. Speaking to a meeting of students in the build up to the demonstration at Labour Party conference, he said that 'when you look into the history, the UK and US government have been engaged in criminal activity for many years.'

Kendall-Smith refused to serve in Iraq as he deemed it an illegal war. He was court martialled in April of this and sentenced to eight months in prison. He was released in June but under conditions that included tagging, a curfew, and a ban from speaking to the media. He thanked stop the war activists for the support that they had shown him when he was in prison and said that he had also had a lot of support from ex servicemen and army veterans.

He told the meeting that 'There can be no justice without truth.' He said that he felt obliged to refuse to fight in Iraq as it was an illegal war and that the Nuremburg trials after the Second World War had established that people should not obey illegal orders. He said that he had returned from a tour of duty in the Gulf and had started to read books by Noam Chomsky and others that led him to question the role of Britain and the US in the Middle East.

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